AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine Public Banking recently presented 2017 Profiles in Courage Awards to State Senators Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and Mike Carpenter, D-Houlton, both representing Aroostook County.
John F Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Profiles in Courage biographed eight U. S. Senators whose principled positions on controversial issues cost them their constituents’ popularity and colleagues’ esteem: John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund Ross, Lucius Lamar, George Norris, and Robert Taft.
Jackson is the Democratic leader for District 1, and Carpenter represents District 2.
Maine Public Banking Executive Director Randall Parr said in a press release that, despite substantial misrepresentation of the public banking concept by many spokesmen and spokeswomen the Maine financial establishment, the senators both stood behind a State Green Bank proposal that would economically benefit the people of Maine.
While most senators backed the 128th legislature Joint Insurance and Financial Services committee majority on the Senate floor, these Senators voted for the proposed state-owned Maine Green Bank by voting “no” on the “not to pass” motion from the Joint Insurance and Financial Services committee.
Other 2017 Profiles in Courage recipients include Sens. Shenna Bellows; Susan Deschambault; Rebecca Millet; sponsor David Miramant; assistant minority leader Nate Libby; James Dill; and Rep. Heidi Brooks, who moved the state-owned bank bill to the Senate floor by casting the only Joint Insurance and Financial Services committee dissenting vote to an “ought not pass” motion, despite misrepresentation by financial establishment witnesses at a public hearing in February 2017, according to Parr.
